{"id":260425,"date":"2022-01-10T12:54:54","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T18:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=260425"},"modified":"2022-01-10T00:21:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T06:21:38","slug":"media-romanticizes-murder-woman-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/media-romanticizes-murder-woman-dementia\/","title":{"rendered":"Media romanticizes point-blank shooting of woman with dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

In 2019, a New York Times contributor faced massive backlash after framing a couple’s murder-suicide as a “love story<\/a>.” Now, two years later, a similar story is in the media again \u2014 but this time, with less outrage.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Times has dedicated a two-part<\/a> series<\/a> to the murder of Pam Kruspe by her husband, Stephen Kruspe. Pam was living in a care facility for people with Alzheimer’s disease. Stephen ultimately shot her in the heart, claiming it was what she wanted.<\/p>\n

On the day of her murder, the Times began setting up the narrative of Pam’s murder as a mercy killing:<\/p>\n

He got her hot coffee. His was iced. As they talked, he said later, \u201cshe would come and go, come and go.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

After almost an hour, she looked at him and asked, \u201cDo we have to go back there?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, he said, yes, we do.<\/em><\/p>\n

During the drive back, the closer they got, the more unhappy Pam became, Steve later told a detective. This account is drawn from his interview at the Boynton Beach Police Department.<\/em><\/p>\n

Steve signed his wife into the facility at 6:30 p.m. \u201cAnd when we finally went back inside is when she started almost incessantly with, \u2018I want you to \u2026 to \u2026 I \u2026 I don\u2019t want to be here anymore.\u2019 \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She said she wanted to die. That she was going to kill herself. She told her husband, \u201cI want you to kill me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

After walking her down a hallway to the care facility parking lot, Pam reportedly kept saying “please,” which is meant to insinuate that she was begging to die.<\/p>\n

Romanticizing a bullet to the chest<\/strong><\/p>\n

“What do you do when someone you love is hurting, and there\u2019s no way to fix it?” Times writer Lane DeGregory wrote. It\u2019s illegal, in most places, to help someone end their life. Even if they beg you.” He further added that “laws haven\u2019t caught up” to public support for assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

DeGregory then dedicated paragraphs to the Kruspes’ happy marriage, and Stephen’s straight-laced life as a Marine Corps veteran who never broke the law \u2014 not even a parking ticket. Eventually, Pam was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When the disease progressed to a point where Stephen couldn’t care for her himself anymore, she was placed in a care facility.<\/p>\n

The article then explains how Pam “didn’t move” when Stephen pointed a gun at his wife’s heart, and how he shot her point-blank. “For the first time in forever, she looked relaxed,” DeGregory says of Pam’s murder. “Like his Pam.”<\/p>\n

Stephen called 911, said he shot his wife, and claimed it was because she asked him to \u2014 even though there is seemingly no information to back up his claim, other than his own word.<\/p>\n

Though Stephen confessed, he is still pleading not guilty. Two of his three children are witnesses for the prosecution and want nothing to do with him, while one is standing by his side. But, DeGregory writes, the one who supports his father believes “[t]hose questions don\u2019t really matter now anyway… His mom is no longer hurting.”<\/p>\n

“To have and to hold… is not demonstrated by a .45 to the chest”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephanie Wilhelm, another of the Kruspes’ children, wrote a letter which she read in court. “He could\u2019ve put her in that home and walked away if things got too difficult. We would\u2019ve made sure she was taken care of. He chose to take matters into his own hands to make it go away,” she said of her mother, and then addressed her father directly. \u201cHe is not capable of doing what\u2019s recommended when faced with adversity. To have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health is not demonstrated by a .45 to the chest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other child, Andrew Kruspe, said Stephen spoke about killing Pam a year before he actually did so, which he brushed off as venting out of frustration. “[Wh]ere was his loyalty to my mother?\u201d he asked. \u201cThose things that were offered to defend him also showed he should\u2019ve treated my mother with more respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paula Purdy, Pam’s sister, was similarly blistering in a letter written to the court. \u201cHe is not the upstanding, honorable person that the defense is attempting to paint him as,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe bullet Mr. Kruspe chose to end my sister\u2019s life with has ricocheted around the family causing immense pain, testing relationships, and left us reeling as to how one person\u2019s selfishness can cause so much destruction. … let\u2019s not romanticize the acts of a murderer and spin it into a Shakespearian tale that never actually existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Excusing murder under the guise of “mercy”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stories like Kruspe’s are increasingly being romanticized, where they provoked controversy just two years ago. But as assisted suicide grows in the public conscience as an acceptable option for ill, elderly, and disabled relatives, the notion of killing such a family member is likewise increasingly accepted. A 52-year-old man who pushed his elderly mother off a balcony was cleared of murder<\/a>. The crime was described as a “mercy killing,” with the judge saying it was an act of “love and desperation” to literally throw his mother to her death. Robert Latimer, the Canadian man who notoriously killed his daughter<\/a> with cerebral palsy to “end her suffering” is considered a hero to many, and still is a euthanasia activist.<\/p>\n

What these stories tell us is that if someone is deemed to be too much of a burden, it is acceptable to kill them. And meanwhile, people with disabilities are frequently victims<\/a> of murder and violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just about the Times piece; this happens all the time,\u201d Keah Brown, a disability rights activist, told the Cut<\/a>. \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about it because there\u2019s always this need to identify with the killers. We sweep aside the victim and say, \u2018Oh this person was under so much stress because of the toll it takes to care for a disabled person.\u2019 It tells people that all their lives boil down to is a burden.\u201d<\/p>\n

So long as these stories rationalizing and romanticizing murder under the “right” circumstances continue, people will continue to insist that murder should be allowed \u2014 as long as the victim’s life is deemed not worth living.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019, a New York Times contributor faced massive backlash after framing a couple’s murder-suicide as a “love story.” Now, two years later, a similar story is in the media again \u2014 but this time, with less outrage. The Tampa Bay Times has dedicated a two-part series to the murder of Pam Kruspe by her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":260453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15,3473],"tags":[1631,3299,15119,15120,1045,15121,15118],"yoast_head":"\nMedia romanticizes point-blank shooting of woman with dementia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pam Kruspe, who had dementia, was shot at point blank range in the heart by her husband, Stephen... and the media is romanticizing it as a "mercy killing."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/media-romanticizes-murder-woman-dementia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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